Maxwell Alejandro Frost (born January 17, 1997) is an American politician, activist and musician serving as the

U.S. representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

for since 2023. A member of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

, he was previously the national organizing director for

March for Our Lives March for Our Lives (MFOL) was a student-led demonstration in support of gun control legislation. It took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, and wa ...

. Elected at age 25, he is the first member of

Generation Z Generation Z (or more commonly Gen Z for short), colloquially known as zoomers, is the Western world, Western demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular me ...

in Congress.

Early life

Frost was born on January 17, 1997, to a Puerto Rican woman of Lebanese descent and a Haitian father. His biological mother had several children. He was adopted as an infant; his adoptive mother is a

special education Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...

teacher who migrated to the United States from Cuba in the

Freedom Flights Freedom Flights (known in Spanish as ''Los vuelos de la libertad'') transported Cubans to Miami twice daily, five times per week from 1965 to 1973. Its budget was about $12 million and it brought an estimated 300,000 refugees, making it the "larg ...

, and his adoptive father is a musician from Kansas. He reconnected with his birth mother in June 2021. Frost attended

Osceola County School for the Arts The Osceola County School for the Arts (OCSA) is a public magnet arts school located in Kissimmee, Florida. Students can major in one of the following disciplines: Visual Arts, Drama, Vocal Music, Instrumental Music/Band, Creative Writing, Dance ...

in Kissimmee, Florida. As of June 2022, he is enrolled as a student at

Valencia College Valencia College is a public college in Orlando, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System. The college was founded in 1967 as Valencia Junior College and changed its name in 2010 because the academic scope of the school had expanded to i ...

Early career

Frost has been organizing since around 2012, when he was active with Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign. He also volunteered with the Newtown Action Alliance, an organization created in response to the

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and t ...

. He has identified

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest Social movement, movement against economic inequality and the Campaign finance, influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, Manhattan, Wall S ...

, the

Columbine High School massacre On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, 12th grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. ...

, the

killing of Trayvon Martin On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy. Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of mixed race, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for his ...

, and the

Orlando nightclub shooting On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff. In a 9- ...

as events that affected his thinking. He later worked for

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

, and

Margaret Good Margaret Elizabeth Rowell Good (born August 23, 1976) is an American lawyer and politician from Florida. She served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2018 to 2020, representing the Sarasota area. She is a member of the Democratic Par ...

. Frost survived an incident of

gun violence Gun-related violence is violence committed with the use of a firearm. Gun-related violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide (except when and where ruled justifiable), assault with a deadly weapon, a ...

at a

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...

event in

Downtown Orlando Downtown Orlando is the historic core and central business district of Orlando, Florida, United States. It is bordered by Marks Street in the north, Mills Avenue (SR 15) in the east, Orange Blossom Trail (US 441) in the west, and Kaley Avenue in th ...

in 2016. Frost was an organizer with the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

and worked to support Florida's 2018 Amendment 4 and to pressure Joe Biden to stop supporting the

Hyde Amendment In U.S. politics, the Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. Before the Hyde Amendment took effect in ...

in 2019. He was the national organizing director for

. In November 2021, Frost was arrested at a

voting rights Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

rally in Lafayette Square led by

William Barber II William J. Barber II (born August 30, 1963) is an American Protestant minister and social activist. He is the president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. ...

and

Ben Jealous Benjamin Todd Jealous (born January 18, 1973) is an American civil rights leader and social impact investor. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 200 ...

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2022

In August 2021, Frost announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for

Florida's 10th congressional district Florida's 10th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Florida. It was reassigned in 2012, effective January 3, 2013, from the Gulf Coast to inland Central Florida. Before 2017, the district included parts of wes ...

. During the primary campaign, he released a television ad in

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...

, telling ''The Hill'', "Latinos are in a place where their first language is Spanish but they speak English as well, and quite frankly that's me... We speak Spanglish in the house, and I know that's the same for a lot of Latino families in the district." Frost defeated state Senator

Randolph Bracy Randolph Bracy III (born April 23, 1977) is an American politician who is a member of the Florida Senate from the 11th district. Bracy's district includes parts of central and northwest Orange County. Bracy is the first African American to serve a ...

and former

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

Alan Grayson Alan Mark Grayson (born March 13, 1958) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2009 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was defeated for reelection in 2010 by Republican Daniel ...

and

Corrine Brown Corrine Brown (born November 11, 1946) is an American former politician who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida from 1993 to 2017 and a convicted felon. She is a member of the Democratic Party. After a court-order ...

, among others, in the August23, 2022, primary. Due to the district's Democratic tilt, Frost was expected to win the general election in November 2022, which he did, defeating Republican Calvin Wimbish by a 19% margin, which was smaller than the 32% margin by which Biden won the district in 2020. Frost is the youngest member of Congress and the first member of

elected to Congress. He was endorsed by numerous national and local political figures, including

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

, former

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

President

, civil rights activist

Dolores Huerta Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organiz ...

, and U.S. Senators

and

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren ( née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a ...

Caucus memberships

Congressional Black Caucus The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is a caucus made up of most African-American members of the United States Congress. Representative Karen Bass from California chaired the caucus from 2019 to 2021; she was succeeded by Representative Joyce B ...

* Congressional Equality Caucus *

Congressional Progressive Caucus The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a congressional caucus affiliated with the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party in the United States Congress. The CPC represents the most Left-wing politics, left-leaning faction of the ...

Committees

* Vice Chair, House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force

Political positions

Environment

Frost supports a

Green New Deal Green New Deal (GND) proposals call for public policy to address climate change along with achieving other social aims like job creation and reducing economic inequality. The name refers back to the New Deal, a set of social and economic refo ...

. He has identified

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

as a priority of his campaign.

Guns

Frost advocates for

gun control Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians. Most countries have a restrictive firearm guiding policy, with on ...

. In January 2023, Frost and Representative

Jared Moskowitz Jared Evan Moskowitz (born December 18, 1980) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Moskowitz served on the Broward County Commission ...

sent House Speaker

Kevin McCarthy Kevin Owen McCarthy (born January 26, 1965) is an American politician, serving as House Minority Leader in the United States House of Representatives since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as House Majority Leader under spea ...

a letter asking him to convene a classified meeting to address mass shootings. The letter called for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to conduct the meeting.

Healthcare

Frost supports

single-payer healthcare Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer"). Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from ...

and investing in

pandemic prevention Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics. It is not ...

Criminal justice

Frost wants to "build toward a future without prison." He supports the decriminalization of

sex work Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to volunt ...

and

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...

use.

Israel

Frost supports a

two-state solution The two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict envisions an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, west of the Jordan River. The boundary between the two states is still subject to dispute and negotiation ...

to the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...

and has indicated his intent to travel to Israel to promote "US leadership in bringing peace to a region that so desperately needs and deserves it." He has called himself pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. He supports unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel. He has criticized the Palestinian Authority's martyr's fund that compensates the families of dead and wounded militants, likening it to a recruitment tactic of

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...

for the purpose of committing politically motivated violence against Israel. Frost vehemently opposes the

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations ...

(BDS) movement, accuses it of harboring leadership from

terrorist organization A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...

s, and suggests that businesses that participate in BDS should in turn be divested. In early August 2022, the Jewish news website ''Jewish Insider'' published a candidate questionnaire from Frost's congressional campaign that showed a shift in Frost's foreign policy positions on Israel and Palestine. Frost had formerly participated in pro-Palestine activism, signing pledges with the Florida Palestine Network (FPN) and the Palestinian Feminist Pledge, calling for support of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, ending military aid to Israel, and rejecting the conflation of

anti-Zionism Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestin ...

with antisemitism. ''Jewish Insider'' characterized his responses as a reversal that distanced himself from his past while declaring an aggressive stance against the BDS movement, calling for unconditional military aid to Israel, and stating his opposition to anti-

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...

. His campaign later released a

position paper A position paper (sometimes position piece for brief items) is an essay that presents an arguable opinion about an issue – typically that of the author or some specified entity. Position papers are published in academia, in politics, in law and ...

that formalized these positions.

Personal life

Frost's biological mother abused crack cocaine while pregnant with him. Upon meeting for the first time, Frost learned that he "trembled" as an infant due to drug withdrawal. He said: "it wasn't her fault". Frost speaks Spanish and English. He is a

jazz drummer Jazz drumming is the art of playing percussion (predominantly the drum kit, which includes a variety of drums and cymbals) in jazz styles ranging from 1910s-style Dixieland jazz to 1970s-era jazz fusion and 1980s-era Latin jazz. The techniques an ...

and plays the

timbales Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfico ...

. His nine-member high school band Seguro Que Sí ( es, link=no, "of course") performed in the parade during Obama's second inauguration in 2013. In December 2022, Frost said he was denied a rental apartment in Washington, D.C., due to a "really bad"

credit history :''This article deals with the general concept of the term credit history. For detailed information about the same topic in the United States, see Credit score in the United States.'' A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repay ...

. He said his credit rating was bad because he "ran up a lot of debt running for Congress for a year and a half". Frost was among a handful of Democrats who received about $1 million in support from former billionaire

Sam Bankman-Fried Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 6, 1992), also known by the initialism SBF, is an American suspected fraudster, entrepreneur, investor, and former billionaire. Bankman-Fried was the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX ...

's Protect Our Future PAC, as well as the maximum individual donation of $2,900. In December 2022, the U.S. government indicted Bankman-Fried after alleging that he gave investor money to progressive political candidates, among other fraudulent crimes. After the announcement of charges against Bankman-Fried, Frost donated the individual donation to the Zebra Coalition, an

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

charity.

Electoral history

References

External links

Congressman Maxwell Frost
official U.S. House website
Maxwell Frost for Congress
campaign website * * , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, Maxwell 1997 births 21st-century African-American politicians 21st-century American politicians Activists from Florida African-American activists African-American people in Florida politics American gun control activists Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Florida Living people Puerto Rican people in Florida politics American politicians of Lebanese descent American politicians of Haitian descent African American adoptees American Zionists African-American members of the United States House of Representatives Hispanic and Latino American members of the United States Congress